Waste Management/Transcript
Transcript Text reads: The Mysteries of Life with Tim and Moby A robot, Moby, places a banana peel on the top of an overloaded trash can. This causes the garbage to spill over the floor. A boy, Tim, hears the crash. MOBY: Beep. TIM: What, what is it? Tim looks down at the garbage and liquids spilled on the floor. TIM: Oh, I guess I forgot to take the trash out. Moby hands Tim a letter. Tim reads from the typed letter. TIM: Dear Tim and Moby, Who takes care of the trash after I throw it out, and where is it taken? Thank you very much, Esther S. TIM: Waste collection is usually carried out on a municipal or city level. Every town has a system in place for collecting and disposing of waste, including the refuse from your home. MOBY: Beep TIM: Refuse is just solid, non-hazardous waste. MOBY: Beep. TIM: Well, you know, stuff like food packaging, scrap paper, old electronics, worn out cloth; oh, oh, and that banana peel you just tried to throw away. Images show a bag of chips, a radio, paper, and a shirt. TIM: Hazardous wastes like used medical supplies, cleaning solutions, and old batteries have to be thrown out in a special way, not in the ordinary garbage. An image shows a garbage can with a note on it that shows a cross-out sign over a hypodermic needle, vial, and bottle. Waste Management TIM: Refuse is usually collected by trucks once a week, and sometimes more because food decomposes so fast. The trucks often contain compactors that press the waste down into less than half of its original volume. If you live in a place with a recycling program, trucks may come by separately to pick up your recycling. A garbage truck pulls away from the curb after picking up the garbage. Moby waves at the truck. The compactor at the back of the truck crushes the refuse inside of it. MOBY: Beep. TIM: Well, what happens after collection can really vary. A lot of waste is treated to make it smaller, and lighter, and easy to handle. An animation shows a crane lifting blocks of compacted waste off of a flatbed truck and stacking them on the ground. TIM: Incineration, or burning, is a common treatment where refuse is carefully burned. Incineration can reduce the volume of waste by more than ninety percent, leaving just ash, glass, and metal. An animation shows a pile of waste being burned. TIM: Composting, another method of treating organic waste, lets organic materials decompose and become a rich organic material that's great fertilizer for soil. Lots of people compost on their own, and use the soil in their yards. An animation shows waste decomposing and forming compost. TIM: Some waste materials, like glass, paper, aluminum, and plastics can be recycled and reused. An image shows a glass bottle, aluminum can, cardboard box, and plastic carton, placed around a recycle symbol. TIM: In some waste-to-energy plants, boilers convert the heat from the incinerators to steam, kind of recycling the waste as energy. An image shows a boiler inside a waste-to-energy plant. TIM: But by far the most common method of disposing of waste is in landfills. An image shows a bulldozer and mountains of garbage piled up at a landfill. Birds are flying overhead. TIM: Landfills kind of have a bad rap, but recent laws have made them a lot safer. They're not just holes in the ground where waste is dumped. Today's sanitary landfills are designed to reduce pollution. All waste must be a certain distance away from the water table, so our water sources aren't polluted. Liners made of layers of plastic and clay cover the bottom, and similar layers have to cover the top so rain can't carry off pollutants. When a landfill is completed properly, it can become a park, playground, or even a golf course. Side by side images show a landfill a distance away from a body of water and garbage bags piled up between liners. TIM: When a landfill is completed properly, it can become a park, playground, or even a golf course. An animation shows a golfer hitting a golf ball with a club. MOBY: Beep. TIM: Yeah, it's becoming harder to find good places for landfills. Waste is an unavoidable product of life, and no method of disposing of it is perfect. The best way to manage waste is just to cut back on it before it even gets to the disposal stage. You can help out by buying products that aren't heavily packaged, by composting, and by figuring out ways to reuse stuff at home. In the kitchen, Tim picks up a foam cup from the floor and places it into a plastic bag. TIM: See, if you'd composted that banana peel, this never would have happened.Category:BrainPOP Transcripts Category:BrainPOP Science Transcripts Category:BrainPOP Engineering & Technology Transcripts